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Populism is a political discourse that juxtaposes
"the people" with "the elites." Populism may comprise an ideology, a political philosophy or a mere type of
discourse urging social and political system changes and/or a
rhetorical style deployed by members of political or social
movements. It is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as "political
ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary
people's needs and wishes"

Academic definitions

Academic and scholarly definitions of populism widely vary and,
among both journalists and scholars, the term is often employed in
loose, inconsistent and undefined ways to denote appeals to ‘the
people’, ‘demagogy’ and ‘catch-all’ politics or as a receptacle for new
types of parties whose classification observers are unsure of.
Another factor held to diminish the value of ‘populism’ in some
societies is that, as Margaret Canovan notes in her 1981 study
Populism, unlike labels such as ‘conservative’ or ‘socialist’, the meanings of which have been
‘chiefly dictated by their adherents’, contemporary populists
rarely call themselves ‘populists’ and usually reject the term when
it is applied to them by others . Some exceptions to this pattern
of pejorative usage exist, notably in the United States, but it
appears likely that this is due to the memories and traditions of
earlier democratic movements (e.g. farmers' movements, New Deal reform movements, and the civil rights
movement) that were often called (and called themselves) populist.
It may also be due to linguistic confusions of populism with terms
such as "popular" .

Due to the attention on populism in the academic world, scholars
have made advances in defining the term in ways which can be
profitably employed in research and help to distinguish between
movements which are populist and those which simply
borrow from populism. One of the latest of these is the
definition by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell who, in their
volume Twenty-First Century Populism, define populism as
"an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a
set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as
depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their
rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice" . Rather than
viewing populism in terms of specific social bases, economic
programs, issues or electorates, as discussions of right-wing
populism have tended to do, this conception of populism belongs to
the tradition of scholars such as Ernesto Laclau, Pierre-Andre
Taguieff , Yves Meny and Yves Surel who have all sought to focus on
populism per se, rather than simply as an appendage of
other ideologies (such as nationalism, neo-liberalism etc.). In
fact, given its central tenet that democracy should reflect the
pure and undiluted will of the people, populism can sit easily with
ideologies of both Right and Left. Indeed, while leaders of
populist movements in recent decades have claimed to be on both the
left and the right of the political spectrum, many populists claim
to be neither "left wing," nor "centrist"
nor "right wing."

Styles and methods

Some scholars argue that populist politics as organizing for
empowerment represents the return of older "Aristotelian" politics
of horizontal interactions among equals who are different, for the
sake of public problem solving . Populism has taken left-wing,
right-wing, and even centrist forms, as well as forms of politics
that bring together groups and individuals of diverse partisan views. The use of populist rhetoric in the United
States has recently included references such as "the powerful
trial lawyer lobby", "the liberal elite," or "the Hollywood elite". An example of populist rhetoric on
the other side of the political spectrum was the theme of "Two Americas" in the 2004 Presidential Democratic Party campaign
of John Edwards.

Populists are seen by some politicians as a largely democratic and positive force in society, even
while a wing of scholarship in political science contends that
populist mass movements are irrational and introduce instability
into the political process. Margaret
Canovan argues that both these polar views are faulty, and has
defined two main branches of modern populism worldwide —
agrarian and political
— and mapped out seven disparate sub-categories:

Agrarian

Commodity farmer movements with radical economic agendas such
as the US People's
Party of the late 19th century.

Fascism and populism

It is believed by some that populist movements can be precursors
for, or building blocks for, fascist
movements. Conspiracistscapegoating employed by various populist
movements can create "a seedbed for fascism." National socialist populism interacted
with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany. In
this case, distressed middle–class populists during the
pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their
anger at government and big business. The Nazis "parasitized the
forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies
far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism."
According to Fritzsche:

The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of
middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong
and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against "unnaturally"
divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National
Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth,
of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....[b]reaking
social barriers of status and caste, and
celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the
people’s community...

History in Europe

Classical populism

The word populism is derived from the Latin
word populus, which means people in English (in the sense of "nation," as in:
"The Roman People" (populus Romanus), not in the
sense of "multiple individual persons" as in: "There are people
visiting us today"). Therefore, populism espouses government
by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses).
This is in contrast to elitism, aristocracy, synarchy or
plutocracy, each of which is an ideology
that espouse government by a small, privileged group
above the masses.

Early modern period

Populism rose during the Reformation; Protestant groups like the Anabaptists formed ideas about ideal theocratic societies, in which peasants would be
able to read the Bible themselves. Attempts of establishing these
societies were made during the Peasants'
War (1524-1525) and the Münster Rebellion (1534-1535).
However, the peasant movement ultimately failed as cities and
nobles made their own peace with the princely armies, which
restored the old order under the nominal overlordship of the
Holy Roman EmperorCharles V, represented in
German affairs by his younger brother Ferdinand.

The same conditions which contributed to the outbreak of the
English Revolution of 1642-1651,
also known as the English Civil
War. It led to a proliferation of ideologies and political
movements among peasants, self-employed artisans, and working class people in England. Many
of these groups had a dogmatic Protestant religious bent. They
included Puritans and the Levellers.

Religious revival

Romanticism, the anxiety against
rationalism, broadened after the
beginnings of the European and Industrial Revolutions because of
cultural, social, and political insecurity. Romanticism led
directly into a strong popular desire to bring about religious
revival, nationalism and populism. The ensuing religious revival
eventually blended into political populism and nationalism, becoming at times a single entity
and a powerful force of public will for change. The paradigm shift brought about was marked by
people looking for security and community because of a strong
emotional need to escape from anxiety and to believe in something
larger than themselves.

Rejection of ultramontanism

Chateaubriand's beginning brought about two
Catholic Revivals in France: first, a
conservative revival led by Joseph de
Maistre, which defended ultramontanism, also known as the supremacy
of the Pope in the church, and a second
populist revival led by Felicite
de Lamennais, an excommunicated priest. This religious
populism opposed ultramontanism and emphasized a church community
dependent upon all of the people, not just the elite. Furthermore,
it stressed that church authority should come from the bottom-up
and that the church should alleviate suffering, not merely accept
it, both religious principles based on populism.

Latin America

Populism has been an important force in Latin American political history. In Latin
America, many charismatic leaders
have emerged since the 20th century. Populism in Latin America has
been traced by some to concepts taken from Perón's Third Position.
Populist practitioners in Latin America usually adapt politically
to the prevailing mood of the nation, moving within the ideological
spectrum from left to right many times during their political
lives. Latin American countries have not always had a clear and
consistent political ideology under populism. Most of these
countries cannot be as clearly and easily divided between liberals
and conservatives, as in the United States, or between
social-democrats and Christian-democrats as in European countries.
Nevertheless, the more recent pattern that has emerged in Latin
American populists has been decidedly socialist populism that
appeals to masses of poor by promising redistributive policies and
state control of the nation's energy resources.

Populism has been fiscally supported in Latin America during
periods of growth such as the 1950s and 1960s and during commodity
price booms such as in oil and precious
metals. Political leaders could gather followers among the
popular classes with broad redistributive programs during these
boom times. Populism in Latin America has been sometimes criticized
for the fiscal policies of many of its leaders, but has also been
defended for having allowed historically weak states to buy off
disorder and achieve a tolerable degree of stability while
initiating large-scale industrialization. Thus though specific
populist fiscal and monetary policies may be criticized by economic
historians, populism has also allowed leaders and parties to co-opt
the radical ideas of the masses so as to redirect them in a non
revolutionary direction.

Often adapting a nationalist vocabulary and rhetorically
convincing, populism was used to appeal to broad masses while
remaining ideologically ambivalent. Notwithstanding, there have
been notable exceptions. 21st Century Latin-American populist
leaders have had a decidedly socialist bent.

When populists do take strong positions on economic philosophies
such as capitalism versus socialism, the
position sparks strong emotional responses regarding how best to
manage the nation's current and future social and economic
position. Mexico's 2006 Presidential election was hotly debated
(even if only among its social elite) among Mexicans who supported
and opposed populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Inequality

Populism in Latin American countries has both an economic and an
ideological edge. The situation is similar in many countries
with the legacies of poor and low-growth economies: highly unequal
societies in which people are divided between a relative few
wealthy families and masses of poor (with some exceptions such as
Argentina, where strong and educated middle classes are a
significant segment of the population).

Other perspectives trace inequality to the formation of Latin
America's governments and institutions, which were shaped by the
Spanish crown upon the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards.
Latin America was not meant to be a colony for the settlers to live
in and develop, like the United States, but a source of resources
for the Spanish crown. After the nations obtained their
independence, many colonial legacies survived.

Populists can be very successful political candidates in such
countries. In appealing to the masses of poor people prior to
gaining power, populists may promise widely-demanded food, housing,
employment, basic social services, and income-redistribution. Once
in political power, they may not always be financially or
politically able to fulfill all these broad promises. However, they
are very often successful in stretching to provide many broad and
basic services.

Economics debate on populism and socialist populism

In
Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in a relatively short period of time, populist
leaders were perceived to have delivered more to their lower class
constituents than previous governments. Critics of populist
policies point to the infamous consequences of spending and lack of
reform on these countries' respective finances involving growing
debt, pressured currencies, and hyperinflation, which in turn led
to high interest rates, low growth, and debt crisis. The 1980s in
Latin America became referred to as a lost decade during which the
region experienced low economic growth and few if any reductions in
poverty while the Asian Tigers have
been consistently developing through high rates of savings,
investments, and educational achievements. Supporters of past
economic policies would point to the uncontrollable economic
consequences of high oil prices to much of the world economy during
the 1970s and the unanticipated fall in commodity prices that would
later complicate financing past spending.

Reacting to the legacy of the debt-crisis and slow growth during
the 1980s, many Latin American governments privatized state-owned enterprises, such as
electricity and telecommunications during the wave of
privatizations that occurred in those countries in the 1990s, and
opened to trade. This has also been done outside Latin America,
from Britain and the U.S. (during the Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan years) to Russia and China's
(accelerating economic liberalization during the 1990s) to speed
economic growth and employment.

In the Argentinian Corralito crisis, the
government was forced to withdraw after three days of popular
riots. In Mexico, tortilla price increases have sparked protests
demanding price-controls which the leadership instead handled with
a gentleman's
agreement with major manufacturers capping prices for a fixed
time period.

The economic debate continues as reforms to weak and closed Latin
American economies opened up to external shocks and competition
such as through privatizations and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) in Mexico and other trade agreements and
privatizations throughout Latin America. While orthodox
economics point to longer term gains for quickly modernizing
countries like Chile, slower
moving countries have considered retracting from the initial
shocks. Some blame a "neo-liberal" economic model favored by an
unpopular US government. The "neo-liberal" tag, along with the
label of the "Washington
Consensus" have been used to criticize harsh economic policies
on the one hand, and on the other hand some have used to demonize
orthodox economic science and policies by tying them directly to
the unpopular U.S. government which faces widespread distrust in
Latin America. Indeed throughout the world, orthodox economists
generally agree that the older socialist policies favored by many
populists have hindered Latin American economies and that today
further neo-liberal economic reforms would be needed to compete in
the international arena for more jobs and faster growth. Support
for socialism continues within economic circles that rely on
pro-socialist works such as "Whither
Socialism?" by Joseph Stiglitz.
.

US policy

The US
has intervened in Latin American governments on many occasions
where populism has threatened its interests: the interventions in
Guatemala, when the populist Arbenz
government was overthrown by a coup backed by the American company
United Fruit and the American ambassador in 1954, and Augusto Pinochet's Chilean coup in 1973 are just two cases of
American intervention.Daniel
Ortega's Sandinista government in
Nicaragua was also viewed as a threat to US foreign policy during
the Cold War, leading the United States to
place an embargo on trade with the Sandinista's Soviet-sponsored
regime in 1985 as well as supporting anti-Sandinista rebels.One last example of
US intervention has been seen in Colombia particularly since the assassination of the
populist leader Jorge Eliecer
Gaitan in April 1948. Gaitan supported land reform and
other socialist initiatives which posed a threat to American
interests; it is for this reason that Gaitan's assassination is
alleged to have been a CIA plot. To this day
Colombia continues to be the US's most important ally in the region
with continuous military aid under Plan
Colombia.

Strength and current socialist tendency

Populism has nevertheless remained a significant force in Latin
America. Populism has recently been re-appearing on the left with
promises of far-reaching socialist changes as seen in Venezuela
under Hugo Chavez. These socialist
changes have included policies nationalizing energy resources such
as oil, and consolidation of power into the hands of the President
to enable a socialist "transformation." The Venezuelan government
often spars verbally with the United States and accuses it of
attempting to overthrow its president Hugo Chavez after supporting
a failed coup against him.
Chavez himself has been one of the most outspoken and blunt critics
of U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan and U.S.
governments continue to rely on each other for oil sales from
Venezuela to the United States.

In the 21st century, the large numbers of voters in extreme poverty
in Latin America have remained a bastion of support for new
populist candidates. By early 2008 governments with varying forms
of populist governments with some form of left leaning social democratic or democratic socialist platform had come
to dominate virtually all Latin American nations with the
exceptions of Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico. This political
shift includes both more developed Nations such as Brazil with its
ruling Workers' Party,
Argentina's Front for Victory and
Chile with it's Socialist
Party, and smaller income countries like Bolívia with it's
Movement towards
Socialism and Paraguay with the Patriotic Alliance for Change.
Populist candidates have been defeated in middle-income countries
such as Mexico, in part by comparing them to Venezuela's
controversial Hugo Chavez, whose socialist policies have been used
to scare the middle class. Nevertheless, populist candidates have
been more successful in poorer Latin American countries such as
Bolivia (under Morales), Ecuador (under
Correa) and Nicaragua (under Ortega). By the use of broad grassroots
movements populist groups have managed to gain power from better
organized, funded and entrenched groups such as the Bolivian
Nationalist Democratic
Action and the Paraguayan Colorado Party

Wherever governments in Latin America maintain high rates of
poverty and yet support unpopular privatizations and more orthodox
economic policies without quickly delivering gains to enough
people, they will continue to come under pressure from populist
politicians who accuse them of focusing on securing more benefits
for the upper and upper-middle classes rather than the people as
represented by those in poverty and extreme poverty, and for being
allied to foreign and business interests.

Mexico

In Mexico, Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador's candidacy sparked very emotional debates
throughout the country regarding policies that affect ideology,
class, equality, wealth, and society. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's
most controversial economic policies included his promise to expand
monthly stipends to the poor and elderly from Mexico City to the
rest of the country and to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade
Agreement to protect the Mexican poor.

The ruling party in Mexico, the National Action Party (PAN),
portrayed him as a danger to Mexico's hard-earned economic
stability. In criticizing his redistributive promises that would
create new entitlement programs somewhat similar to social security
in the US (though not as broad in scope) and his trade policies
that would not fully uphold prior agreements (such as NAFTA), the
economic debate between capitalists and socialists became a major
part of the debate. Felipe Calderon
, the PAN candidate, portrayed himself as not just a
standard-bearer for recent economic policy, but rather more fully
as a more pro-active candidate so as to distance himself from the
main criticisms of his predecessor Vicente Fox regarding inaction.
He labeled himself the "jobs president" and promised greater
national wealth for all through steady future growth, fiscal
prudence, international trade, and balanced government
spending.

During the immediate aftermath of the tight elections in which the
country's electoral court was hearing challenges to the vote tally
that had Calderon winning, Obrador showed the considerable
influence over the masses that are a trademark of populist
politicians. He effectively led huge demonstrations filling the
central plaza with masses of sympathizers who supported his
challenge. The demonstrations lasted for several months and
eventually dissipated after the electoral court did not find
sufficient cause from the challenges presented to overturn the
results.

George Wallace, Four-Term Governor of
Alabama, led a populist movement that carried five states and won
13.5% of the popular vote in the 1968 presidential
election. Campaigning against intellectuals and liberal
reformers, Wallace gained a large share of the white working class
vote in Democratic primaries in 1972.

Populism continues to be a force in modern U.S. politics,
especially in the 1992 and 1996 third-party
presidential campaigns of billionaire Ross
Perot. The 1996, 2000, 2004, and the 2008 presidential campaigns
of Ralph Nader had a strong populist
cast. The 2004 campaigns of Dennis
Kucinich and Al Sharpton also had
populist elements. The 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential
candidate John Edwards has been
described by many (and by himself) as a «one economic community,
one commonwealth» populist.

Comparison between earlier surges of Populism and those of today
are complicated by shifts in what are thought to be the interests
of the common people. Jonah Goldberg
and others argue that in modern society, fractured as it is into
myriad interest groups and niches, any attempt to define the
interests of the "average person" will be so general as to be
useless.

Over time, there have been several versions of a Populist Party in the United
States, inspired by the People's Party of the 1890s. This was the
party of the early U.S. populist movement in which millions of
farmers and other working people successfully enacted their
anti-trust agenda.

In 1984, the Populist Party name
was revived by Willis Carto, and was
used in 1988 as a
vehicle for the presidential campaign of former Ku Klux Klan leader, and later member of both
the Republican
Party and the Democratic Party, David Duke. Right-wing Patriot movement organizer
Bo Gritz was briefly Duke's running mate.
This maligned incarnation of Populism was widely regarded as a
vehicle for white supremacist recruitment. In this instance,
populism was maligned using a definition of "the people" which was
not the prevailing definition.

Another populist mechanism was the initiative and referendum driven
term-limits movement of the early 1990s. In every state where
term-limits were on the ballot, the measure to limit incumbency in
Congress passed. The average vote was 67% in favor. However, the
U.S. Supreme Court struck down term limits in 1995. U.S.Term Limits, Inc. v.Thornton.

In 1995, the Reform Party of the
United States of America (RPUSA) was organized after the
populist presidential campaign of Ross Perot in 1992. In the year
2000, an intense fight for the presidential nomination made
Patrick J.Buchanan the RPUSA standard-bearer. As
result of his nomination ans party candidate there were many party
splits, no only from Buchanan supporters after he left the party
but also moderates, progressivists and libertarians around Jesse Ventura who refused to collaborate with
the Buchanan candidacy. Since then the party's fortunes have
markedly declined.

In the 2000s, new populist parties were formed in America,
including the Populist Party
of Maryland, which ran candidates for governor, lieutenant
governor, U.S. Senate and state delegate in the 2006 elections,
Populist Party of America
in 2002, and the American Populist Renaissance in 2005. The
American Moderation Party, also formed in 2005, adopted several
populist ideals, chief among them working against multinational
neo-corporatism.

Germany

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, a LutheranMinister, a professor at the University
of Berlin and the "father of gymnastics," introduced the Volkstum, a racial
nation that draws on the essence of a people that was lost in the
Industrial
Revolution.Adam Mueller went
a step further by positing the state as a bigger totality than the
government institution. This paternalistic vision of aristocracy concerned with social orders had a
dark side in that the opposite force of modernity was represented
by the Jews, who were said to be eating away at the state. Populism
also played a role in mobilizing middle class support for the Nazi
Party in Weimar Germany.. In this case, distressed middle–class
populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period
mobilized their anger at government and big business. According to
Fritzsche:

The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of
middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong
and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization.... Against “unnaturally”
divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National
Socialists cast themselves as
representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and
neglected German public....[b]reaking social barriers of status and
caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically
the populist ideal of the people’s community...

France

In the late 18th century, the French
Revolution, though led by wealthy intellectuals, could also be
described as a manifestation of populist sentiment against the
elitist excesses and privileges of the Ancien Régime.

In France, the populist and nationalist picture was more mystical, metaphysical
and literarian in nature. Historian Jules
Michelet (sometimes called a populist) fused nationalism and
populism by positing the people as a mystical unity who are the
driving force of history in which the divinity finds its purpose. For Michelet, in
history, that representation of the struggle between spirit and
matter, France has a special place because the French became a
people through equality, liberty, and fraternity. Because of this, he believed, the
French people can never be wrong. Michelet's ideas are not socialism or rational politics, and his populism
always minimizes, or even masks, social class differences.

In the 1950s, Pierre Poujade was the
leader of the right-wing populist movement UDCA.

"The basic ideology of the middle class is populism.... Their
ideal was an independent small property owning class consisting of
merchants, mechanics, and farmers. This element...now designated as
middle class, sponsored a system of private property, profit, and
competition on an entirely different basis from that conceived by
capitalism....From its very inception it opposed "big business" or
what has now become known as capitalism." David Saposs, quoted in
"Political
Man", Lipset

References

Albertazzi, Daniele and Duncan McDonnell. 2008.
Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European
Democracy Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN
023001349X ISBN 978-0230013490

Rupert, Mark. 1997. "Globalization and the Reconstruction of
Common Sense in the US." In Innovation and Transformation in
International Studies, S. Gill and J. Mittelman, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

United States

Dobratz, Betty A, and Stephanie L. Shanks–Meile. 1988. “The
Contemporary Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party: A Comparison
to American Populism at the Turn of the Century.” Humanity and
Society, 20–50.